POLL: Did you chose the number of people or make the guest list first?

TheBaysideBride · December 2012

This is one of the only issues my fiance and I are having - he's stuck on a number, I think we should focus on who we want at our reception. Just curious - what worked for everyone here? Sticking to a number, or working through a list to decide who really matters?

mweber74 · December 2012

Did the list first and it was very small and intimate. It was 80 and it grown to 115 where I hope it will stop.

JaxInBlue · December 2012

We started with a list of everyone we could think of that we might want to invite and then sectioned that list off - immediate family, must invites, want to invites, would be okay not inviting, courtesy invites. This helped us figure out which venues to look at as we knew we needed to be able to fit up to X people. Once we had a better idea of how our budget would work with proposed venues, we went back to a list and determined a cut off. With our venue and budget, we were able to invite through the want to invites .

Magdala9 · December 2012

We did the guest list first. It came in at 160 so we looked at venues that could accomodate 160. You need the number to figure out the size of your venue because fire codes won't allow venues to exceed their size.

On the day of the wedding, our final count was 120 and 5 did not arrive for that (baby arrived 3 weeks early so that family was a little bit occupied). We gave the venue the final count of 120 on their final date so we were only billed for 120 meals.

AdeleDazeem · December 2012

We could afford to host 150 people properly. The list was capped at 150 people.

AddieCake · December 2012

We knew we wanted to keep it under 100. We made our list of everyone we would have liked to invite and then streamlined it from there.

melb2013 · December 2012

My FI is the one with the big family, so he made a list of all the family he needed to invite and then we set a number after he made that list that worked with our budget and his family size.

Tami87 · December 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_reception-ideas_poll-did-you-chose-the-number-of-people-or-make-the-guest-list-first?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:5Discussion:471f15ed-ce62-48d3-89fe-cb813e7ed38bPost:c3f102ec-5379-4870-8801-38d754c59945">Re: POLL: Did you chose the number of people or make the guest list first?</a>:
[QUOTE]We started with a list of everyone we could think of that we might want to invite and then sectioned that list off - immediate family, must invites, want to invites, would be okay not inviting, courtesy invites. This helped us figure out which venues to look at as we knew we needed to be able to fit up to X people. Once we had a better idea of how our budget would work with proposed venues, we went back to a list and determined a cut off. With our venue and budget, we were able to invite through the want to invites .
Posted by JaclyneD[/QUOTE]

This. We also set the max number we would invite after making this list. I would also recommend including and budgeting for SOs (even if they don't exist yet) when making lists. It is very possible (especially since we had a year and a half engagement) that people will have a SO by the time invites go out and you don't want to be unable to accomidate them. Of course not everyone will get a SO and you don't have to invite truely single guests with a date, but I think it is a good idea to be prepared for a few of your now single guests to end up with SOs.

Our list ended up being 200 (we both have huge families and this included guests for all singles). We then looked at venues that could comfortabley fit this number and were in our budget. We also budgeted to feed this many people with the plan to upgrade our selections depending on actual guest number.

After RSVPs came in we ended up with 125 (A lot chose not the bring a guest and over half our guest list had to travel for the wedding). Because we had budgeted from the beginning for 200, we were able to upgrade the bar and add a wine pour during dinner and still come out under what we were planning to spend. We also just spaced the tables a bit more and had 8 to a table instead of 10, and the room still looked plently full. It was so nice to end up under budget and I highly recommend budgeting and planning for your max number, verses planning for the number you think will come which could result in a lot of stress if you end up with more than you expected.

The thing to be careful about when checking out venues is if they have a min guest number. Some don't care about the min number of actual guests but more about the total $ amount. So if you fall below the guest # you can make up the price difference by upgrading the food or bar. But other venues don't allow this and make you pay for x number of guests without upgrades. This is definitely something to ask and look at before you sign contracts.

Good Luck!

erinlin25 · December 2012

Like most PP, we made a list at first to get an general idea. From there we found a venue and from pricing were able to decide if would accomodate others (old college friends, etc). Which I think we will, but its still TBD on a few. Our first concern is the "must invite" number is within budget before deciding on the final guest list; which that decision is creeping up on me!

libby2483 · December 2012

We made a list of everyone we would like to invite if we had unlimited space and budget, which was about 250. Then, we looked at venues that accommodated approximately that number. We found a venue at accommodated 200. Considering the size and the cost of the venue, we cut our guest list from there.

VioletRays · December 2012

Knowing our finances, we decided on size we wanted not exact # first. Did we want intimate with immediate family & best friends only, a large everyone we ever knew bash, etc.? Then made our guest list based on that. We then set our exact budget. Then planned accordingly.

cwaggoner07 · December 2012

We knew from the moment we were engaged where we wanted to get married. My parents were married at the same lake, and we also had our first date there.
We set a budget, booked the venue, and from there determined that we could host around 150 (venue maxed out at 175).
Because the venue was so incredibly important and non-negotiable to us (and priced for our budget), we molded our guest list around that number.

Jen4948 · December 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_reception-ideas_poll-did-you-chose-the-number-of-people-or-make-the-guest-list-first?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:5Discussion:471f15ed-ce62-48d3-89fe-cb813e7ed38bPost:86cf0d64-b80f-4c5c-801b-5549ba1f4f3c">Re: POLL: Did you chose the number of people or make the guest list first?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: POLL: Did you chose the number of people or make the guest list first? : We did this. Once we had a number we started looking at venues and then when we picked a venue we knew that x dollars could pay for n people and started culling our list to fit in our budget.
Posted by Liatris2010[/QUOTE]

This is how I would do it. I'd compose a master list of everyone I want to invite, and then establish tiers-Tier 1 being "must invites," Tier 2 being "would really like to invites," Tier 3 being "would like to, but not absolutely necessary invites," Tier 4 being "if we can fit them in invites," and Tier 5 being "lowest priority invites." (Hopefully, you don't have too many Tier 5 people!)

Once I know how many people there are in Tiers 1 through 3, I'd budget around that and fit people in from Tiers 4 and 5 if my budget allows for it.

NOLAbridealmost · December 2012

We did I guess a combination of both. We KNEW we wanted something fairly small and intimate, but the actual number wasn't really a concern. We just basically went through our friends and family and decided who we were truly close to because we knew we wanted to keep things small....we invited no kids, great-aunts/uncles, or friends from high school or friends who we don't see all the time or friends of our parents. Then we arrived at our final number through that process.

Eh, I guess we "made the guest list first" but we kept it smaller than it could have been because we knew we didn't want a big wedding.

gmg75241 · December 2012

We chose a number first based on the budget that we wanted to keep in regards to the food and open bar. After we the number, then we filled in the names with the guests.

SCD1126 · December 2012

Well, I had an idea in mind and fiance blew it out of the water. His guest list alone was my total headcount LOL

We're taking a good hard look at the list and making sure that those who are important to us are on it. I don't want to cut those I want there for the sake of an arbitrary number.

We're still well under our venue's max so that's a non-issue.

linzy85 · December 2012

My FH and I have done it based on a guest list. We know all the people that we want at our wedding and it's already almost at 200. It's too hard to place a limit on the number of people. We have too many people that we want to be there and share the special day with us. It'd be hard for us to exclude anybody unless they're somebody we just don't talk to at all anymore.

PrincessMandie · December 2012

We both have a large family so we chose a venue that could accommodate the most people (it happened to be my dream venue as well). Then we made the list and eliminated. We originally were thinking max guests 300 (which is what our venue will hold). We have now decided 150 is a good number and will cross people off. I'm ok going up to 200 people but FI and I are paying for this ourselves and I don't want to spend enormous amounts of money on food and favors and have to skimp on nice decor.

Sydney91 · January 2013

We based our number on what our dream guest list was and budget constraints. Ended up with 90 on the list. We are well under budget (75%) because we chose to have a more intimate wedding with less than 100.

POLL: Did you chose the number of people or make the guest list first?

Re: POLL: Did you chose the number of people or make the guest list first?

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